All Episodes
Dec. 9, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:49
December 9, 2008, Tuesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Greetings, my friends, and welcome back, Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Telephone number if you want to join us.
800-282-2882, the email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
I keep trying to get away from this Blogoyevit stuff because I have a I have a fabulous stack of other stuff here, but it's difficult, folks, because the stuff just keeps being piled on.
Dick Durbin this afternoon in Chicago at a press conference.
This is a sad day for my state of Illinois.
Our system of justice gives anyone accused of a crime the right to defend himself in court, and Governor Blagoevich will have that opportunity.
But if the allegations, and I read them this morning, in the criminal complaint against Governor Blogevitch are proven true, he has clearly abused the public trust.
I think the Illinois General Assembly should enact a law as quickly as possible, calling for a special election to fill the Senate vacancy of Barack Obama.
No appointment by this governor under these circumstances could produce a credible replacement.
Due process doesn't count anymore.
Even for one of their own guys.
It is amazing, ladies and gentlemen.
They've thrown Blagojevich under the bus as though he were a Republican here.
*gunshot*
Normally Democrats do stuff like this.
They circle the wagons.
But nobody's out circling the wagons around Blago today.
Now, even Durban.
He should have called him a Nazi thug or pole pot type dictator thug or whatever to really add emphasis to this.
Again, uh ladies and gentlemen, another question here about about Fitzgerald.
Now, Fitzgerald, because people are trying to understand.
Why stop this?
We're in the middle of a crime spree.
We are in the middle of a crime spree, and the crime spree involves the selling of what?
The Senate seat.
Currently belongs to Barack Obama.
We know that Obama had somebody in mind for the seat.
That person pulled himself out of the running, had a propitious time.
We also know that Pat Fitzgerald, who was the special prosecutor in the leak of the name of Valerie Plame, as some sort of a CIA James Bond, which is the thing that was always a fraud.
He did a two and a half year investigation even after he had his answer.
The name of the leaker was Richard Armitage.
Armitage is who leaked it to Bob Novak.
And yet Fitzgerald convened a two and a half year investigation and then got himself a process crime.
Scooter Libby, perjury.
And a jury convicted.
And that investigation went on and on and on and on and on and on.
This one gets shut down in the middle of a corruption crime spree.
That's what Patrick Fitzgerald called it.
Now we know this, ladies and gentlemen.
We know that for the past couple of weeks, Obama has had insertion teams all over various agencies of the government in advance of his inauguration.
This is part of the transition.
The Bush administration is uh participating in this.
And some of these people are showing up, State Department, the Justice Department, where Eric Holder will be the attorney general.
Um, and they are examining the way things are going.
They're familiarizing themselves with ongoing matters.
So an Obama insertion team in the Justice Department for a couple weeks now stumbles across what's happening here in Illinois with good old Governor Blogo.
And then all of a sudden, Fitzgerald stops an ongoing crime spree in the middle of the crime spree.
Rush, are you saying that Obama people, a Justice Department, a transition team called Fitzgerald, ladies and gentlemen, don't put words in my mouth.
We're never going to have wiretaps on those kinds of phone calls.
But I mean, put look at two and two equals four, unless it's outcome-based education, to which case it equals whatever you want it to be.
To me, two and two equals four.
Now, another thing to keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, as we wade through this primordial muck, that is Chicago politics.
One of the things that new incoming presidents do is fire all of the sitting United States attorneys.
I think there are 93 of them, something like that.
Bill Clinton did this.
One of the first things he did, I mean, with the first week in office, canned them and put his own guys in there.
Standard operating procedure.
Although, when Bush replaced eight.
Bush did not do this, by the way.
Bush with a new tone left a lot of Clinton U.S. attorneys in office, did not sweep them.
Only in his second term did he start replacing some, and the Democrats tried to impeach the attorney general at the time, Gonzalez, for supposedly playing politics with the Justice Department.
And of course, the White House did not fire back, did not defend itself.
No reason to go over already trod ground.
However, what are the odds that the U.S. attorney in Chicago will be replaced by Barack Obama when he is inaugurated?
Can you just see the headline now?
Patrick Patrick Fitzgerald, he of the scooter Libby conviction and the indictment of Illinois Governor Rod Blagoevich today was fired by incoming President Barack Obama and replaced by X. People say, wait a minute, Fitzgerald is fired?
Why, after he indicates Blogoyevitch, a Democrat, I don't care how tone-deaf they are at Obamaville and they're not tone-deaf, that's not going to happen.
So he might fire 92 U.S. attorneys, but he's not going to fire 93 U.S. attorneys.
Now it doesn't mean the Fitzgerald can't be elevated.
Doesn't mean that Fitzgerald can't resign on his own.
I mean, stranger things have happened.
But this is all just the timing of this.
And Fitzgerald making it a point today to say that Obama had nothing to do with it.
Not about the president election.
I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure as things stand now, there wasn't, I think.
It's part of why you shut down the ongoing corruption crime seats about his seat.
It was just yesterday, or maybe it was.
Was it yesterday we were talking about kids and how pampered they are, and oh, yeah, the economic story of parents.
Very much concerned over whether to tell the kids a truth about our dire economic circumstances.
And I made mention of the fact had a story yesterday that uh in in certain school districts, now they're getting rid of the word of the uh grade F and replacing it with H. Grade held, not a W. That reminds people of Bush.
It's H. Grade held.
And this is in preparation for the student being able to hold on to his mortgage after not being able to pay for it.
No F, it's too humiliating.
And I made the point, well, we had to do something because we have to get rid of the red pencils.
Remember, had to get rid of the red pencils because it was just, it was too intimidating for students to get their papers back graded and marked up with red.
From Sydney, Australia teachers using red pen to mark students' work could be harming their psyche as the color is too aggressive.
According to education strategeries drafted by an Australian state government.
The Good Mental Health Rocks Kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 scrolls in Queensland state, offers strategeries such as Don't Mark in Red, which can be seen as aggressive.
Use a different color.
Uh we are spreading our political correctness around the world.
Now, the sitcom continues, ladies and gentlemen.
Again, I express my frustration.
I cannot laugh.
Every story today has been worth a belly laugh.
And I still can't laugh.
From the U.K. Green campaigners call the police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve.
Environmentalists found 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and other trees marked with notches for felling at a beauty spot in northern Poland.
But when officers followed a trail left by a tree which had been dragged away, they found a beaver dam across the river.
A police spokesman said the environmentalist wackos are feeling pretty stupid.
There's nothing more natural than a beaver.
Beavers cut down 20 trees.
They got a picture of a nod.
They even put a notch, you know, they put a notch in the tree so they can be pushed over.
And these wacko environmentalist nutcases walk through there and immediately think environmental destruction.
They thought they were hot on the trail of the culprit.
They find beavers.
Nothing more natural than a beaver.
Getting answers to my questions here very quickly, ladies and gentlemen.
I've been asking all day why shut down an ongoing crime spree.
Turns out that Jack Consey of the Fox affiliate in Chicago, Fox TV Eyeball News, said this.
We did receive a tip this morning that perhaps all of this came together so quickly because Governor Blogevitch may have reached out to Ram Emanuel, the president elect's chief of staff in attempting to leverage filling the Senate seat.
And it may have been Ram Emanuel who tipped the scale and made this move as quickly as it did.
So there's the answer.
Ram Emanuel, who is clean and pure as the wind driven snow.
When he was reached out to by Governor Blanco.
So we can't have this.
And made a move to shut down the investigation to get it going or stop it or what have you, because this is just this is just this is just we can't have this.
So that's that's what's going around Chicago now that uh Ram Emanuel was the white knight.
That uh saved the day.
Here is uh Doug in Binghamton, New York.
Doug, welcome to the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Uh, I just want to make a comment real quick on how the governor of Illinois sounds remarkably like Gary Hart did when he was running around with his little monkey business he was up to in his, you know, come catch me type attitude the day before.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Um, and he's also got great hair.
He's got he's got he's got he's got John Edwards kind of hair, he's got he's got Kennedy kind of hair.
Um, which, you know, just it it you you just notice these things.
Like you've noticed he sound a little bit like uh a Gary Hart.
Uh I'm telling you women today are noticing his hair.
Well, that's great.
All right, thanks, Doug.
Appreciate it.
Jackson, Michigan, and welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Ry.
Hi.
Um, I want to thank you and Zycam for saving my book tour and my life.
Saving your book tour and your life, Zycam?
Absolutely.
How did that happen?
Well, I have sarcadosis, which is the same lung disease that Bernie Mack had when he died.
I also am the author of children's books, and recently I was on a two-week book tour of elementary schools when I started catching a cold.
I took a side cam, which I have never taken in my life, and actually have always thought that your ass for it were were really hooey, you know.
I never believed that it would be.
Did you did you send me an email last night?
I sure did.
Because I read your email and I was gonna print it out and bring it in for the next for the next uh time I had to record a ZyCam commercial.
And when you used the word hooy, I remember reading your email because you thought that uh and by the way, I was profoundly insulted because here you are regular listener telling me you think I'm lying to you about things.
And so you thought Zygam was a bunch of hooey.
I did.
I really did.
Until I until I needed it, and I used it because of my disease and my compromised immune system, I cannot catch a cold.
And uh I go into elementary schools all the time uh to you know do presentations for my books and so I just I want to say thank you.
I want to tell you how wrong I was and how much I appreciate um the product.
I also have a lot of trouble with um speaking for public um you know public speaking I cough a lot because of my disease and in fact right before I came on air with you I took Zycam cough max and that works just wonderfully I didn't well you you I hope you took the daytime formula.
Absolutely so it wouldn't make you sleep.
Yeah yeah and I I've used it a lot for public speaking well that's just great.
I just I have one question.
Uh oh no it's I'm fearful of your question.
No no no no don't be fearful I mean you think the product is hooy.
You hear me talk about Zycam and what do I say?
I say if you think you're catching a cold use it the minute you think so you got to catch it early it may not stop it but it'll certainly slow it down and and and shorten the duration.
Why did you try it if you thought it was hooy because I was desperate.
I have never taken um I've never been away from home for two weeks and I had signed a contract to do a two week book tour of elementary schools and I happened to hear you uh 48 hours before I was to leave on my book tour and you were advertising it and I went to the store and I thought you know this probably this thing probably doesn't work I'm probably not gonna need it but I took it anyway and I'm really really glad that I did.
I'd like you um to allow me to return the favor I'd like to send you a signed copy of my children's book Christmas Tree Farm for your nieces and nephews.
Wow that's very nice if you'll stay on hold Mr Sturdley will give you the details on how to do this.
Okay thanks so much and um yeah thanks thank you very much.
What it means is you never did think it was hooy.
Because if you thought Zycam was hooy you would have never even tried it.
Well that's probably true.
Right.
Okay thank you so much Russ.
Same here.
Appreciate it.
Moving on uh Kevin in South Fort Myers, Florida.
Nice to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Megaditos from sunny Southwest Florida, sir.
Appreciate that.
Quick question for you.
Ever since I heard you say you support the workers but not the union, I've been hitting redial for about an hour and a half.
I wanted to know how uh how you would uh perceive someone saying I support the military man the the f warfighter but I don't support the war.
What is the difference between I support the worker but not the union and I support the military warfighter but not the war.
Well uh to be correct what they said was they support the troops uh but not the mission understood and and I hear your point on unions being uh Tim a teamster for the for ten years.
You're a teamster?
I was sir.
I yes for ten years a UPS driver and I saw some of the little local corruption and I stood up see this is the point this is the point.
I love what you do.
I depend on UPS Well I feel like X. And sometimes I depend on DHL.
I used to depend on the flying tigers.
I used to de I like the fact that you have get up and go.
I like the fact that you have initiative that you're out there performing a service I love the work that you do.
I just don't like your union leaders.
I I would have to say I agree with you because in my tenure I filed twenty nine grievances and never lost and uh good portion of them were to change contractual language for the next upcoming contract so it had no benefit to me other than me sticking my neck out for the little guy because the way they were collecting our union dues is same across the board regardless of your pay rate and it was a violation of the contract but it was too hard to write them out and do the math.
Nothing you can do about it.
They collect the maximum amount no matter how much money you make these guys make from eleven dollars an hour to twenty five dollars an hour.
That's right.
They're not supposed to make more than twice their hourly rate but everybody was paying the same maximum amount like they were making forty four dollars an hour or whatever if you go out and say something to the wrong person about it, you got more than a flat tire on your truck to look at.
Yeah, well, when people stood up and said, hey, we overpaid for the two years it took to get to the top payscale, they said, okay, you have to come forward individually to request your money.
And you didn't do it because you wanted to live.
Back to your phone calls here in mere moments, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
I've been trying.
I've been trying to get to the auto bailout stack.
And I'm still not going to be able to get the auto bailout stack, but there's major stuff happening there.
For example, I just received a note.
Uh Automotive News Europe today is reporting that automakers, U.S. automakers, the big three, would have to give up lawsuits against California's law limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which would hand the environmentalist wackos a major victory.
Now that see, here's the thing is if if those lawsuits were successful, it would go a long way toward allowing the auto companies to make a comeback.
This is this is my point about this all along.
Not to absolve the auto companies of all blame here, but for crying out loud, they've had the federal government running their business for all these years anyway, and look what it's done to them.
They don't have the federal government to deal with when they're running a business elsewhere around the world.
And so they were suing environmentalist wackles in California, and they're gonna have to give up the lawsuits to accept the bailout.
And then Wall Street Journal.
U.S. could take stake in Big Three.
Dingy Harry says, Well, now we really don't want to use taxpayer money to own these companies, but we see we have really no choice.
ABC News is reporting the American people are opposed 54% to the uh auto bailout.
This is a deal that nobody wants except the unions and Obama, and therefore it will happen.
By the way, Change to Win, the union organization referenced in the bribery investigation of uh Governor Blago in Chicago, says it has had no contact with Blogoevich or federal investigators.
According to the federal criminal complaint filed today, Blago and his age discussed gaining a high-paying job at Change to Win.
This is an offshoot of the service uh employees International Union.
High paying job at change to win in exchange for making an Obama-friendly Senate appointment.
They didn't know Obama was president.
They had no, they never heard of Boglyovich.
They didn't know anything about this.
This group just now found out that Obama was president.
Now, Blogoevich later seemed to grow cold on the idea because he wasn't sure the relatively new union organization would still be around at the end of his term.
According to the complaint.
Now, the spokesman for change to win, you're gonna get this guy's last name as the soap opera continues.
Pardon the sniffles, his name is Greg Denier.
DE NIER, the spokesman for Change to Win.
Greg Denier said no one at Change to Win had any involvement, discussion, or contact with the governor or his advisors, or anyone representing him.
Deny Damn it.
Yes, they're denying everything.
Denier is denying everything at change to win.
Uh Denier added this the notion of a job for the governor at Change to Win was a complete invention of the governor's office and his staff, and it has no basis in reality.
We have an executive director, said Denier.
We have a leadership council.
A notion that somehow the former governor of Illinois, Not former yet.
The notion that somehow the former governor of Illinois can simply step in and assume leadership of this organization on the face of it is implausible, said Denier.
The spokesman for change to win.
Harvard University's largest faculty plans to freeze salaries for professors and non union staff.
Next year.
Again, this may shock you.
Let me read this again for you.
This is from Reuters.
Harvard University's largest faculty plans to freeze salaries for professors and non-union staff next year as the world's richest university grapples with a funding shortfall brought on by the financial crisis.
Now, this place they got nothing to worry about.
Obama's hiring all these people anyway to work for him in Washington.
Wait a second wait a second.
A letter from deans of the faculty of arts and scientists, sciences to department heads, said at least 105 million dollars must be cut from the budget, which is strained by a projected 30% drop in the school's endowment in the year to June 30th.
Now their endowment is down $8 billion to like $38 billion from $46 billion.
And because their endowments down to $38 billion, despite Obama's election.
$38 billion.
They're gonna have to freeze.
What's the reserve for?
Obviously, this is a reserve.
People have reserves and they don't want to tap the reserves.
They want to go out and ask people to take pay cuts or ask other people for more money or whatever when they've got $38 billion.
Do you realize how small a percentage, $15 million is of $38 billion?
So they're asking salaries, they're asking professors to accept freezes and their non-union staff to accept freezes.
I don't know how these professors are going to live on what they're currently making.
Do you realize the insult asking these professors to take this kind of hit?
You know it is bad, ladies and gentlemen.
When you read that the recession has hit the National Football League, the NFL said today it is cutting more than 10% of its headquarters staff.
In response to the downturn in the nation's economy.
The Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the cuts in a memo to league employees.
The NFL is eliminating about 150 of its staff of 1,0100 in New York.
The NFL is eliminating some jobs at NFL Films in New Jersey and at their television and internet production facilities in Los Angeles.
Now, I um I first place, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
Uh I really apologize for this hacking cough on the sniffles.
I know it's very unprofessional, but it is what it is, and this is real radio.
Now NFL Films.
If there is my personal opinion, if there is ever anything that should be insulated, is NFL Films.
They don't have that many people working at NFL Films anyway.
It was started by a guy named Ed Sable, and it's run now by his son Steve Sable.
And then in full disclosure, I know Steve Sable.
The NFL owes as much to its current success and image to NFL Films as it does to anything else.
It was NFL Films years ago.
Who made football understandable, uh, made it funny, illustrated, close up this game, put it to music, showcased with never before used camera angles of a football in flight, the absolute athleticism required, the beauty of this game.
NFL Films is just they ought to be in the Hall of Fame.
Ed Sable ought to be in the Hall of Fame, and Steve ought to go in the Hall of Fame.
There's some of the most tireless supporters of the National Football League that you will ever run into.
And they don't have that many people to cut.
If I were people in the NFL, I wouldn't leave.
I would do a sit-in.
I would take my I would take my lead from these courageous union people in Chicago at the window factory who refuse to leave until they are paid their benefits, until they are paid their vacations.
The NFL has been symbolic of the wealth surrounding professional sports.
Players are going to make 4.5 billion dollars alone this year.
But now the NFL joins the NBA, NASCAR, and the company that runs Major League Baseball's Internet Division in announcing layoffs.
You could just close down the Detroit Lions, close down the Cincinnati Bengals.
And you wouldn't have to cut anybody other than the players.
I think anybody who is laid off in an Obama recession should just refuse to leave.
And organized sit-ins, sit-ins for stability.
The hell with change.
This is not the change they bargain for.
What?
You mean you getting elected means I lose my gig?
Wrong oh, I'm sitting in for stability.
And by the way, Obama, IBD, Investors Business Daily has a pretty good editorial today on Obama encouraging these people to sit in.
That's a violation of the law.
It's not their property.
They are not vacating this place.
It's not their property.
And Obama, who's a well-known street agitator, is uh is illustrating his lack of understanding of what the presidency is all about.
You don't encourage people to break the law.
Of course, I know it doesn't matter what he says.
It's how he says it.
By the way, get ready for another bailout coming down the pike.
The battery business is about to be history.
Dying battery on your cell phone, dying battery on your iPod.
Usually it's a little inconvenience.
You've got to plug it in, you've got to recharge it, but no longer research now shows that high-tech devices will be able to power themselves in the future by converting pressure waves in the air into energy.
No recharge needed.
This is going to be very, very difficult on battery makers.
We're getting this story well in advance of when batteries will become obsolete.
We need what's that gonna do to these electric cars?
That's gonna quick folks, what are the uh two most stolen cars in America, according to Forbes.com.
Two most stolen cars in America.
If you said escalade, you're right.
If you said Hummer, you're right.
SUVs, why?
Not because they can strip them and ship parts overseas, it's because those are the cars people want.
General Motors products.
Escalade and the Hummer.
That's what people want.
Sorry, that's what people want.
What are we gonna make for them?
A bunch of crap.
Well, yeah, crime will go down.
Who's gonna want to steal crap?
By the way, NASCAR also having trouble.
Sponsorships.
Economically stressed marketers.
Not sponsoring the cars as much.
This is a bad thing, except there's there's always, see, we here at the EIB network, we always try to find the positive.
With fewer sponsors on NASCAR cars, we may now actually be able to see what color the cars are.
Rod Blagoevich, get this, wanted to shake down Warren Buffett.
I'm telling you, uh, folks, this this there's something not mentally stable here.
Bloggoevich and his inner circle were expansive in pondering just how they could leverage the Senate appointment for financial gain.
At one point.
At one point, Blogo floated the notion that Warren Buffett, noted Obama supporter, could somehow be brought into the deal.
In a November 11th conversation with John Harris, his chief of staff, Blogo said that he could start a 501c4 political organization to extract money from Buffett, whom Blago called Obama's friend.
His chief of staff said, What?
For you?
Blogo said, Yeah.
The next day Blagoevich again brought up the idea of creating a political entity suggesting Obama could get Buffett or Bill Gates to help underwrite it.
Such donors, the governor said, could put 10 to 15 million dollars in it so I can advocate health care and other issues I care about and help them while I stay as governor.
Obama's advisor is a senator while I stay as governor.
Blogovich proposed controlling the 501c4 through a board of directors and taking over the organization after leaving office.
Nancy Pelosi likes the idea of a car czar.
The car czar is part of the bailout.
Ladies and gentlemen, between Washington and the unions, and remember we love the workers.
We support the workers.
We don't support the union.
Between the Washington people and the unions, there's not going to be any room for a profitable company here.
I think some auto companies' next ad campaign ought to be running against Pelosi and Washington.
Not taking the bailout money, telling Congress we don't need any help from the same people who wrecked our economy.
We don't need help from the people who wrecked our company.
Think they can find an ad agency, come up with that campaign?
Hi, I'm so-and-so from the XYZ Motor Company, and we are not taking a bailout.
And furthermore, we don't want the people who wrecked your home mortgage to ruck our car company.
We don't want the people in charge of ruining the U.S. economy anywhere near our car company.
You think that company would start selling cars?
Guess who Pelosi wants as the cars are?
Paul Volcker.
When's the last time Paul Volcker was inside an assembly plant?
Ron Gettelfinger, the union guy, declined to say whether his union would demand a seat on GM's board in exchange for contract concessions.
This is also being proposed.
I predicted a union's going to end up owning these companies.
Before it's all said and done, the union's going to end up owning the companies.
The proposal gives the Karzar say-so over any major business decision by the automakers while they take federal aid.
The companies would have to open their books to the government, including informing the Karzar of any transaction over $25 million or more.
Nancy Pelosi said, these companies will accomplish nothing if executives were left to their own devices.
I know it's a sitcom.
We are being led by the genuinely insane.
Nancy Pelosi and a Carzar Paul Volcker oversee every decision, have to approve any expenditure over $25 million.
The same people who gave us the mortgage crisis and the subprime crisis, same people who have given us the financial crisis and the lending crisis.
The same people who have, in large part, wrecked the auto industry now want to run it.
Because Nancy Pelosi says executives, if left to their own devices, will destroy the car companies.
Lord help us.
What if they do a special election for Obama's Senate seat?
That means Republicans could win it, and we've got these special elections down pat.
We're three for three.
Export Selection